Rome, Italy. After committing a heinous crime, a senior police officer exposes evidence incriminating him because his moral commitment prevents him from circumventing the law and the social order it protects.

Based on a real WW2 episode. In 1944 in a small village in the Italian Appenines several inhabitants are executed in reprisal for a partisan attack on the German occupying troops. The lieutenant responsible for the execution becomes a priest and then a bishop and several years later he is put on trial for the killings.